10 Reasons Not to Send Your KId to the University of Oregon

Ten more reasons to believe that American academia is one sick place. Do you really want your kids to study under people who inculcate students with ideas like this? I would pay a lot to be there when some serious gentlemen from the Secret Service show up at the idiot's door.

Free Trade

I'm normally all for free trade, the freer the better. But it doesn't work if it's only one-way. The proposed deal with China is one of those that won't work barring some unlikely concessions from the Chinese. There are lot of smaller issues like tariff equalization, but the big one is China's currency. The Chinese yuan's peg to the US dollar is effectively a 50% subsidy on exports to New Zealand (among other places) and an equivalent tariff against New Zealand exports. Somebody, any enterprising journalists out there, needs to ask some hard questions over at MOFAT about when and how the decision was made was to become an economic colony of China.

A related question is, since we don't have a military anymore, what we'll do when the Chinese navy escorts a bunch of trawlers (or dredgers, or survey vessels) into NZ's economic zone and announces they'll fish (or mine iron sands, or explore for oil) anywhere they damn well please. So what would we do about it? Complain to the UN?

Schapelle Corby

I’m seriously conflicted here and I’m almost never conflicted. On the one hand, I’d bet a month’s pay she’s guilty and at the age of 27, the foolish youth defense won’t wash. I was a consul for almost 20 years looking after our fellow citizens in third world prisons, mostly they were in for drug offenses, and I have to say they were without exception guilty as sin. There were some sentences handed out that were harsh, unjust even, --one guy did seven years essentially because he was a smart-ass. There’s reasonable doubt in Corby’s case and in a western country she would have gotten off--but this is not a western country. What would I do if it were my daughter. Well I’d pay whatever bribes are required to get her the hell out of there and then I’d then I’d thrash her within an inch of her life. Finally, you have to wonder whther Corby would be such a cause if she were an aboriginal teenager, or if she were 55 and ugly.

Amnesty International's Intellectual Gulag

Amnesty International, which long ceased being any kind of serious voice for human rights has gone all breathless over Guantanamo, calling it the "Gulag of our time." As the good folks over at Blogger News Network point out there is slight difference between the two, not so you'd notice if you happen to be as historically illiterate and ignorant as AI.

BNN notes: ' "The gulag" is a reference to the vast network of almost 500 prison camps and detention centers operated by the former Soviet Union over a span of some sixty-plus years, in which tens of millions were imprisoned and millions died. There are 540 men being held at Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of being part of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan or associated with the al-Qaida terrorist network.'

We've become used to this sort of gasping hyperbole from the left, but this is astounding in its disregard for history.

The Guardian Defects?

Is there a VRWC mole at the Guardian? This article manages to expose UK Greenpeace capo Stephen Tindale as the thug, twit, snob, hypocrite and fascist that he is. I particularly like the way he plays fast and loose with other peoples' livelihoods.

Recognise anyone, Nanny?

"...“pattern of weak Labor leadership nationally, particularly on the issues of appeasement, isolationism and shirking international treaty obligations”. Tim Blair has Alexander Downer's anti-left thunder. Sounds like a certain other Labour Party....except for Kyoto of course.

Newsweek and Islamofascism

Paul Marshall over at the NRO has a very pointed comment on the Newsweek matter. He's quite right in pointing that Newseek is biased and that its bias led it in this case to negligence and stupidity. He's also right in pointing out that the Koran story was only the latest excuse for rioting in all the Carpetstans. The real problems are the sick, degenerate societies produced by Islamic fundamentalism and our tolerance of same. Let's stop all the PC nonsense and say what everyone knows:

Islam gave up its protection as a religion when it became an expressly political enterprise, an ideology like Communism or National Socialism. Islam recognises no secular realm, no rendering unto Caesar. Until some Islamic Martin Luther appears, no society based on Islamic principles is going to get past the 10th Century.

The Idiots at Newsweek

Newsweek joins the major media idiot list with a fake story about US interrogators at Guantanamo desecrating the Koran. They wanted it to be true, so they were unprofessional, self indulgent, juvenile, credulous and criminally irresponsible. This is even worse than Dan Rather's descent into paranoia and dishonesty, even worse than Howell Raines' little kingdom of lies, worse than Modo's menopausal rantings. At least four people are dead, buildings burnt, and US diplomacy and Afghan democracy set back years.
What do the morons and charlatans at Newsweek have to say? "Gee, we're sorry." Assholes.

The Stupidity Defense

Well, sometimes it's true.There really are some people who are so stupid that they can't be held responsible. Lynndie England is one of these. That doesn't mean that she shouldn't be locked up for her own protection, just that she probably really is just too dumb to understand the consequences of her actions.